Chamber Plans Massive Push for Colombia FTA

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has launched a multimillion dollar grassroots and advocacy campaign to gain congressional approval of a trade promotion agreement with Colombia. The Chamber-led Latin American Trade Coalition and the Chamber’s trade education arm, TradeRoots, will lend support to the nationwide campaign, which will focus on getting out the story on the benefits of trade, and in particular, the Colombia agreement, “outside the Beltway,” according to John Murphy, the Chamber’s vice president of international affairs.

“It will be a lot of dollars and cents, but the best way to measure the effort is in shoe leather and airline miles,” Murphy says. “It’s been a long road already but clearly, we’ve entered a new phase. This will be bigger than anything we’ve ever done.” The Chamber will utilize all its resources, according to Murphy, including the more than 250 state and local chambers of commerce that have already signed on to support the agreement.

To kick off the campaign, the Chamber hosted a press conference on April 9 featuring Deputy U.S. Trade Representative John Veroneau and business representatives including Selena Jackson of UPS. Jackson told reporters that free trade has “a proven track record.” UPS’s export volume has increased 28% in countries with which the U.S. has recently brokered a free trade agreement, Jackson said.

Veroneau pointed out that Colombian products already enter the U.S. duty-free while American exports to Colombia face high tariffs. In addition, Colombia is in the process of negotiating and concluding agreements with other countries including Canada and those in Europe. If the United States does not have its own agreement in place, Veroneau said, American workers will be at a competitive disadvantage. “In this time of uncertainty about the economy, the best thing we can do is open new markets and create new jobs.”

Get involved. Contact your legislator and tell them you support the agreement.

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